Moon Is Duncan Jones’ Homage to Classic Sci-Fi

SAN FRANCISCO — When he set out to make Moon, his new movie about an isolated lunar miner who makes a horrifying discovery, Duncan Jones stepped into a cinematic void.

Hungry for the type of science fiction films he grew up on — flicks from the late ’70s and early ’80s like Alien, Outland and Silent Running — he paid tribute to those films and tried to make a movie he would like to watch.

“It certainly was my intent to write for a science fiction-literate audience, you know?” Jones told Wired.com during an interview in his swank room at San Francisco’s Hotel Vitale.

“I wanted to make a film which would be appreciated by people like myself who loved those films…. It would be great if Ridley Scott or Douglas Trumbull were making more films like that, but they aren’t. So, you know, guys like us are going to have to make them.”

His labor of love in the shadow of sci-fi greatness gave Jones, a 37-year-old who lives in London, a chance to play with audiences’ expectations. In Moon, actor Sam Rockwell’s lonely helium miner is assisted by a calmly reassuring robot called Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), inescapably bringing to mind the soft-spoken HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Jones says he tried to find a “delicate balance” between “taking what we loved from those films, and reinventing them in a creative and hopefully original way, and avoiding copying things outright.” Borrowing from the genre’s giants gave Jones a starting point for making his brainy independent movie, which delivers a powerful message about the human condition without relying on flashy space explosions, CGI aliens or other standard features found in typical sci-fi blockbusters.

(Spoiler alert: Major plot points follow.)

Jones said the best films “focus on what it is to be a human being, and about fundamental human questions,” and suggested that the sci-fi genre gives directors the perfect vehicle for pursuing such terrain.

“You take regular, believable human beings and then you put them in these alien environments,” he said. “And by doing that, you actually make a human being in that environment even more visible. You know, you really see what it is that makes them tick.”

A lifelong sci-fi lover, Jones took some of the genre’s greatest moments and tweaked them to make Moon satisfying for fellow fans.

“There is no way that I could make this film without people assuming that they know where everything comes from,” said Jones. “So I just, like, take that anticipation, and that expectation, and then twist it.”

Moon plays effectively with moviegoers’ expectations as the reality of miner Sam Bell’s situation is revealed. One of the biggest surprises —stop reading right now if you haven’t seen the film and want to have an unsullied cinematic experience — is Sam’s discovery that he is a clone.

It’s a major spoiler, but Jones says he isn’t worried about letting the cat out of the bag.

“I don’t consider it blowing it, because as you know, the fact that he is a clone comes out at the end of the first act,” Jones said. “So, you know, there is still a big chunk of film to go. And the other reason I don’t mind it is, I really believe that it’s one of Sam Rockwell’s best performances that he has ever given. And it’s because of what he does after the point he is playing multiple roles that I think it is so genius.”

Killing computer friends
In college, Jones wrote a thesis paper called “How to Kill Your Computer Friend,” which he now labels pretentious. “I thought it was really important at the time,” he laughs.

Exploring alien territories
“I went all over Ohio because I used to play for the rugby team there…. We used to travel all over the place — Bowling Green and Oberlin and all of those places.”

Brainy vs. entertaining movies
“I get worried when people compare this film to Solaris, because as much as I appreciate and value Solaris … I think the attempt to entertain is less of a priority than what I wanted to make with Moon.”

His next film
“If Moon is an homage to Silent Running and Alien and Outland, then the next one is my homage to Blade Runner…. Not the same story, but definitely of the same spirit.”

Rockwell’s upcoming cameo
“Sam has agreed to do a little cameo [in my next movie], where we will have a little epilogue moment of what happened to Sam when he got back to Earth.”

Sam Rockwell, sci-fi star

Rockwell’s portrayal of the two versions of Sam is shockingly believable. At the beginning of the movie, he’s straggly, worn out and ready to return to Earth as he nears the end of his three-year contract. He leaves the lunar base station to make a repair, only to be injured when he crashes his rover. When he regains consciousness, he’s not alone on the base: An energetic and irritable copy of him has been activated by Gerty.

To pull off the dueling versions of Sam, the actor had to bring to life two distinctly different characters.

“One of them has had three years on his own, and then the other one is kind of fresh, and still kind of aggressive and is the guy who obviously wanted to escape his wife,” Jones said. “There are these two different characters, but they are essentially the same guy.”

The two Sams — one angry and aware, one burned-out and deteriorating at the end of his shelf life — bicker, fight and finally make peace as they realize that the mining company views them as disposable.

To pull off the powerful illusion required a tour de force performance from Rockwell. “I really don’t think there is anyone else that I could have done this with,” Jones said, praising Rockwell’s performance as “genius.”

“Sam is willing to just give up everything he needs to in order to make it work,” the director continued. “He’s completely fantastic. I can’t wait to work with him again.”

To make the magic happen on screen in his first feature-length film, Jones flexed directing muscles he developed working on special-effects-heavy commercials in the United Kingdom for Carling beer and Heinz Ketchup. He also made a few short films prior to Moon, including Whistle, which he calls a “practice run” for doing a feature film.

“Things like where the two Sams are having a conversation, and one Sam does up the fly of the other one, and helps him put his hat on … that’s really technically difficult,” he said.

Jones, who earned a philosophy degree from Ohio’s The College of Wooster, also pulled from his college study to inform his first feature film. He wrote a thesis titled “How to Kill Your Computer Friend: An Investigation of the Mind-body Problem and How It Relates to the Hypothetical Creation of a Thinking Machine,” and delved into humanity’s relationship to sentient machines.

For example, one theory posits that if a robot behaves like a thinking machine, it is a moral necessity to treat it as if it is one — at least until it disproves itself.

“Gerty fits into that in some ways,” he said. Moon‘s helpful robot “is actually a very simple machine with a very simple set of rules. But it’s what we as an audience bring to it, assuming that it’s gonna be like HAL, or it’s what the Sams themselves bring to it, assuming it’s their best buddy — that’s really what matters. And it’s not until … the end of the film, where Gerty says, ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ll go back to my programming and the new Sam will go back to his,’ that Sam 2, realizes: ‘Ah! This is not a person, this doesn’t have any kind of deep human feeling. It’s just a machine.’ You sort of realize at that point that Gerty is actually much simpler than we have assumed he is.”

Background aside, sci-fi might just be in Jones’ DNA. He’s the son of British rock star and actor David Bowie, who wrote sci-fi songs like “Space Oddity” and “Starman” and starred in 1976’s The Man Who Fell to Earth.

“I can’t get away from the fact that everything I am is a reflection of the experiences I went through growing up,” Jones said. “So, whether it was the films that I saw, or the music my dad played when I was growing up, that is the same for everyone…. I came from a very unique time and place. And that made me who I am. But I don’t think I would ever have tried to consciously, you know, reflect that background. That’s just kind of who I am.”

Bonus question from a Wired.com reader

Bellulah asks: “I would be interested in Mr. Jones’ thoughts on the current state of science fiction. Was Battlestar Galactica on the right track? Is the new Star Trek? Not many people are taking the psychological approach like it seems he has, and I wonder if it’s just wanting to capture again some of the wrought tension of something like 2001 or just an antithesis to the fancy space explosions.”

Duncan Jones responds: “I think we know where we are going with that. I loved Battlestar. I thought it was a great show. I watched the whole thing from start to finish. I haven’t seen any of Caprica yet, which I believe is the follow-up, although I’ve heard great things about that too.

“I think what works so well with those shows that we have been discussing is, they concentrate on the human being, and the environment really just becomes part of the setting and the challenge for what is fundamentally a human problem, or in Battlestar‘s case, a human-to-nonhuman problem. So I think Battlestar was definitely on the right track. I would certainly love the opportunity to do a longer format, like a TV-style show that got into something in a much deeper way than you can do on a feature, but we’ll see if that ever happens.

“I haven’t seen Star Trek yet, I’m very much looking forward to it, because I really love those kind of — you know I love popcorn event films, as well, and I am a huge fan of science fiction of all sorts. So it’s not that I have a problem with science fiction as it is, I just feel that there is a certain part of science fiction which has kind of disappeared, and it’s nice to be able to add that back into the variety of films that hopefully we can go and see these days.

“And Jim Cameron’s Avatar, I think, is going to be fantastic. I’m looking forward to that. He always manages to take some aspect, whether it’s technological, or shifting the genre, or just doing something interesting and moving it forward.”

Duncan Jones’ Moon opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles, then expands to other markets June 19. Top photo of Duncan Jones: Jim Merithew/Wired.com